


A Hand in Time

by feroxargentea



Category: Master and Commander - All Media Types
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-18
Updated: 2011-05-18
Packaged: 2017-10-19 13:17:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/201267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feroxargentea/pseuds/feroxargentea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A day-in-the-life ficlet. Which you may of course read it as pre-slash if you prefer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hand in Time

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers: None.  
> Disclaimer: Characters belong to the late Patrick O’Brian and are borrowed with love.

Jack paced the quarterdeck of the _Surprise_ , marking out his daily miles as much to distract himself from tedium and hunger as to combat his slowly expanding waistline. In the mizzen-top, not far above, he could hear the doctor leading three young topmen through their alphabets and a fourth hand, this one not so young either, through his catechism. He wondered briefly whether this last was permissible on a King’s ship – or on one of His Majesty’s Hired Vessels, he should say – but as the Articles of War were silent on the matter and as the ship’s Papists had always been free to worship separately and  unmolested, he dismissed the matter hastily and with some relief. There was no point in aggravating Stephen unnecessarily.

Four bells, and the rhythmic chanting ceased abruptly. The three young men, their pious classroom faces giving way to their usual levity, bounded out of the top, down the shrouds and through the main-hatch with the speed and agility of the doctor’s pet gibbon, leaving their slates neatly stacked by the companion-ladder. After a pause, Stephen’s unclad legs, burnt to the slightly disagreeable colour of an old coffee-stain, appeared through the lubber’s hole, dangled for a few seconds, flailed for the ratlines and finally found purchase, clawed around the thin cordage.

Jack recalled the familiar words of his old nurse, protecting his childish eyes from any unpleasant sight, “Tha’st no need to watch, Jacky dear. What the eye don’t see…”

Stephen had hold of the shrouds now, and had clambered several feet closer to the safety of the deck. Evidently still deep in conversation with the one pupil left in the mizzen-top, he rapped out a sharp answer, emphasizing it with a two-handed gesture, letting go of the shrouds to do so. For a moment Jack’s world seemed to hang unsupported, as if the sea had rushed away from the keel and left it poised on nothingness, and then the roll of the ship flung Stephen back onto the ropes and he was saved, apparently without ever noticing that he had been lost.

Jack breathed again, and forced himself to turn away, to stop watching, to return to his cabin. Stephen would not expect or accept his concern. A prickly, standoffish companion, he had his own unspoken Articles: _Do not ask direct questions. Do not disturb the past. Understand that my accounts may be incomplete or mendacious, especially accounts of my own well-being. Do not offer ostentatious assistance, but be there to pick up the pieces. Do not initiate physical contact, and do not pity me._

The slap of bare feet on the deck and the clatter of slates tossed into the detritus on the table, and Stephen was there at his side, his hand resting on Jack’s shoulder for a minute as he followed his gaze out of the stern-window.

“Is all well, my dear? You seem abstracted,” Stephen said.

Jack pointed south-southeast. “There was a small white bird a cable’s length off the starboard quarter, d’you see it there? Your nondescript tern, might it be?”

“Oh!” cried Stephen, “Oh, your pardon, joy, I…” And he was off, skidding on the Great Cabin’s chequered floor as he seized Jack’s second-best telescope and bolted for the quarterdeck, whence drifted exclamations of excitement and annoyance as the bird swooped in and out of view.

Jack remained at the stern-window, watching the ramrod-straight wake, feeling still that warm pressure on his shoulder. _A hand in time saves two from the_ – from the what? From the birds? No, that was not quite it.

The tern swooped down and seized a fish from the wake, accompanied by a delighted laugh distinctly audible though the skylight. _A hand in time…_

“No matter,” said Jack, aloud but very softly, a smile spreading slowly across his face. “No matter.”


End file.
